MediDart: A first-of-its-kind online pharmacy network
Updated: Sep 10, 2015 01:18:50pm
New Delhi, Sept 10 (KNN) By offering services ranging from digitizing prescriptions to delivering medicines to any place in India, MediDart, the online pharmacy network, has revolutionized the traditional medicine market and simplified the process of buying medicines online.
In our conversation with Shravan K P, Co-founder of MediDart, we walked down the path of creation of first-of-its kind online pharmacy network.
Passionate about computers from childhood days, Shravan was introduced into programming and coding world in early school days and developed a keen interest in learning different codes and languages since then.
“My father started a retail pharmacy in 1979 and switched into distribution business in 1989. I have been involved in the operations of the same since my high school days. I finished my B.Pharma course in 2007 from Al-Ameen College of Pharmacy in Bangalore and formally entered into the distribution business,” said Shravan elaborating about the creation of MediDart.
“I implemented various technology enabled initiatives to make life easier for our customers which helped us to grow our top line very well. I also started establishing retails during the course of which, I realized that users can using technology can send their prescriptions through internet to the pharmacies directly and can get their medicines directly delivered to their home. That is how; the idea of MediDart was born,” he further added.
The co-founder of MediDart, Kiran Divakaran, a high school friend of Shravan, used to run a rural call centre for HP for taking orders of Refill Cartridges through Phone.
“I was discussing the idea of online pharmacy with him, he instantly believed in it and we incubated the company in April 2013 and started looking to build the team,” said Shravan.
As inferred from the conversation, since MediDart was a totally unique concept with nothing to benchmark in the market, it had to be very sure on what the process of ordering medicines should be and how to be compliant with the existing laws and yet disrupt the market.
“Our core team with combined experience of more than 60 years in the pharmaceutical industry acted as a strength and we could make a beta launch in March 2014,” he explained.
As of now, MediDart has hit a run rate of 3 crore per annum.
The existing e-commerce portals like Flipkart, Amazon, are proving to be threats posing as big competitors in the online market. Shravan responded to this statement saying, “We have created a niche market of catering to only prescription medicines which is a totally regulated market and also requires deep domain understanding to execute the plans.”
MediDart is the first portal to offer prescriptions pan India and also allow users to pay for their medicine needs online through their debit/credit cards.
“The 60+ years of experience of the domain of our core team is helping us to take proper decisions and helped us focus on unit level economics instead of just chasing GMV,” said Shravan.
Recently MediDart rolled out an update in which now users can even pay through their PAYTM wallet also.
About the increasing online shopping trends, Shravan doesn’t see the business shifting or offline players losing market. “What I see is the transactions happening online through the marketplaces like us instead of customers visiting the shops to make their purchases. The business is still happening through the traditional pharmacies only. We are just enabling them to offer their services online and give more convenience to their customers,” he said.
Shravan was of the belief that there is a tremendous scope for the growth and development of SMEs in India. The organized market share of any retail in India is pretty less compared to other developed economies. Also, he claimed SMEs to be the highest employers after farming in the Indian Economy.
When asked about the plans for MediDart in forthcoming years, Shravan told us, “We want to scale up the backend network & IT infrastructure to include more pharmacies across all the cities and towns and reduce the turnaround time for deliveries.” (KNN/ Jyoti)
In our conversation with Shravan K P, Co-founder of MediDart, we walked down the path of creation of first-of-its kind online pharmacy network.
Passionate about computers from childhood days, Shravan was introduced into programming and coding world in early school days and developed a keen interest in learning different codes and languages since then.
“My father started a retail pharmacy in 1979 and switched into distribution business in 1989. I have been involved in the operations of the same since my high school days. I finished my B.Pharma course in 2007 from Al-Ameen College of Pharmacy in Bangalore and formally entered into the distribution business,” said Shravan elaborating about the creation of MediDart.
“I implemented various technology enabled initiatives to make life easier for our customers which helped us to grow our top line very well. I also started establishing retails during the course of which, I realized that users can using technology can send their prescriptions through internet to the pharmacies directly and can get their medicines directly delivered to their home. That is how; the idea of MediDart was born,” he further added.
The co-founder of MediDart, Kiran Divakaran, a high school friend of Shravan, used to run a rural call centre for HP for taking orders of Refill Cartridges through Phone.
“I was discussing the idea of online pharmacy with him, he instantly believed in it and we incubated the company in April 2013 and started looking to build the team,” said Shravan.
As inferred from the conversation, since MediDart was a totally unique concept with nothing to benchmark in the market, it had to be very sure on what the process of ordering medicines should be and how to be compliant with the existing laws and yet disrupt the market.
“Our core team with combined experience of more than 60 years in the pharmaceutical industry acted as a strength and we could make a beta launch in March 2014,” he explained.
As of now, MediDart has hit a run rate of 3 crore per annum.
The existing e-commerce portals like Flipkart, Amazon, are proving to be threats posing as big competitors in the online market. Shravan responded to this statement saying, “We have created a niche market of catering to only prescription medicines which is a totally regulated market and also requires deep domain understanding to execute the plans.”
MediDart is the first portal to offer prescriptions pan India and also allow users to pay for their medicine needs online through their debit/credit cards.
“The 60+ years of experience of the domain of our core team is helping us to take proper decisions and helped us focus on unit level economics instead of just chasing GMV,” said Shravan.
Recently MediDart rolled out an update in which now users can even pay through their PAYTM wallet also.
About the increasing online shopping trends, Shravan doesn’t see the business shifting or offline players losing market. “What I see is the transactions happening online through the marketplaces like us instead of customers visiting the shops to make their purchases. The business is still happening through the traditional pharmacies only. We are just enabling them to offer their services online and give more convenience to their customers,” he said.
Shravan was of the belief that there is a tremendous scope for the growth and development of SMEs in India. The organized market share of any retail in India is pretty less compared to other developed economies. Also, he claimed SMEs to be the highest employers after farming in the Indian Economy.
When asked about the plans for MediDart in forthcoming years, Shravan told us, “We want to scale up the backend network & IT infrastructure to include more pharmacies across all the cities and towns and reduce the turnaround time for deliveries.” (KNN/ Jyoti)
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